The Georgia Supreme Court has to decide whether Atlanta city officials are trampling on the rights of exotic dancers by demanding they be age 21 to perform in alcohol-selling clubs or protecting them from the evils of underage drinking.
Atlanta lawyer Amber Ali Robinson said the City Council was not trying to stop 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds from stripping, but it believed they might drink alcohol if they worked in the clubs. While the dancers have a First Amendment right to remove their clothes, the city officials have the right to regulate employment at establishments that make most of their money from selling alcohol.
"They are free to engage in nude dancing in other establishments before they are age 21," she said. "This ordinance here does not regulate expression in any way. It doesn't mention nude dancing."
Lawyer Alan Begner, who is representing five Cheetah Lounge dancers challenging the 2007 law, said city officials were barely concealing their intention. The ordinance exempts performance venues such as the Tabernacle, the Variety Playhouse and restaurants.
He noted that city officials have never shown why under-21 employees at the Cheetah or other strip clubs were more likely to violate alcohol laws than those at other entertainment venues or taverns where alcohol was sold.
"The government provides no rationale," Begner said. "There is no good reason, to dance, to perform, to be free."
Dancers Deanna Willis, Danielle Barbee, Ashlie Startley, Olivia Almeida and Rachel Haxo were all either 19 or 20 years old and performing at the Cheetah when the Atlanta City Council passed the law in October 2007. Because the women had previously paid for city permits — local laws require employees in strip clubs to get special permits — they have been able to continue dancing at the club, but the women won't be able to perform their craft once their permits expire if they haven't turned 21, Begner said.
Justices pushed Robinson to explain why city officials believed under-21 workers in nightclubs were more likely to drink alcohol than ones in restaurants or entertainment venues that sold alcohol.
Robinson said the council wasn't required to show that its concern was correct. "The state is not compelled to support legal assumptions with statistical evidence," she said. "There is a rational relationship between that goal and that ordinance."
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